


Falling Harder from a Height

by Rag



Series: shipstuck [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Break Up, Character Study, Cheating, Communication Failure, F/M, Past Abuse, Quadrant Confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 20:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10906551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rag/pseuds/Rag
Summary: Your name is Dave Strider, and your girlfriend is freaking you the fuck out.





	Falling Harder from a Height

**Author's Note:**

> idk what this is i just wanted to write about everyone being a hot mess on the ship and slowly losing their chill

_Date a troll_ , you’d thought. _She’s funny and smart and hella cute, and she knows how to not make shit weird with overly-personal questions and concerned looks about shit that doesn’t matter._

 _It’ll be great_ , you’d thought. _What could go wrong_ , you’d thought.

Your name is Dave Strider, and your girlfriend is freaking you the fuck out.

Things had been great between you and Terezi, for a while. There were a solid few months or weeks (time is weird on the ship even before you factor in your powers) where the two of you actually had fun. You’d hang out. Shoot the shit. Explore the ship for the fifth time that week. She dragged you into her weird legal roleplays with her stuffed animals with compelling arguments that _it’s not like you have jack shit else to do and you know it!! >8) _After a few sessions you started to get into it and enjoy it. Stories and shit. The magic of fiction and all that jazz. It was kind of like when you would play D&D with John and Rose and Jade, only with stricter rules and even more unpredictably random plot twists.

And then that came to an end, and shit started to suck. Suddenly and without explanation, she started making all these last-minute excuses to bail on you, over and over. You tried joking back lightly that _it’s not like you have jack shit else to do_ , return her joke back at her, and she’d gone blue in the face and snapped at you that you were being disrespectful of boundaries and didn’t know when to back off. Well, you’d backed off then. And now, on the exceedingly rare situations where you actually manage to see her, you don’t bring up the last four times she’s ditched you. She has a bunch of these little bruises and scratches on her arms and face that she tries to hide. When you ask her about it, she refuses to tell you where they came from.

You’re not the brightest bulb in the box, but you’re not stupid. You have a strong feeling you know exactly what’s going on. You know what the answer will be, but you still feel like you want to carefully weigh out your options. Pros and cons. You’ve never gotten this close to someone before, and you don’t want to just give up on it without giving her the benefit of the doubt and shit. So you treat it like a puzzle, and you pretend you’re looking at the pieces and considering their shapes instead of knowing exactly what the sum of their parts will make.

You start by asking Kanaya to clear some things up for you, because she’s the only troll you can stomach talking to this stuff about. Rose is there with her, taking fat sips of some foul-smelling booze at the bar and staring at the wall.

“Lookit what the kitty dragdin.”

You wave to Rose and make a beeline for Kanaya. You miss sober Rose. Drunk Rose was hilarious for all of four minutes before it got uncomfortable, but she doesn’t respond well to your concern. So you stopped showing it. But God, you wish she would cut that out, or put a damper on it. That shit wasn’t right.

“Dave, nice to see you,” Kanaya says. She looks a little relieved that you’re here, for some reason, and you feel kinda shitty that you’re just here to ask her questions and not hang out. You should probably hang out with her. Maybe if you could get Drunk Rose to peel off her like a wet sticker for ten minutes you’d try to hang out more. “Do you need something?”

“Yeah. Got some big questions about the weird mythical troll romance shit, specifically of the spades variety.”

“Ah. What do you-“

“Oh, God!” Rose interrupts, slamming her fist on the table. “Dave, I’m _sso_ sorry.”

“Rose,” Kanaya says sharply, but it doesn’t stop her.

“He heard us talkin’ about it, Nay-Nay! It’s our fault! Now he knows she’s gone darkside with Bozo.”

Kanaya takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of her nose.

You mostly want to die. Not only did everyone know that Terezi was hooking up with Gamzee behind your back, not only were they talking about it behind your back, but now you’re in the room dealing with them knowing that you know that they know, and wondering what you know, and yeah this is seven different flavors of your least favorite thing ever. But as you watch Rose spew her desperate, inappropriate word vomit all over the room, and Kanaya take deep breaths to calm herself down, there’s a shitty, extremely weak and pathetic part of you that’s glad you’re not the only one having trouble with this stuff.

God, what a lame thought. What’s gotten into you? What’s gotten into all of you?

“Shit,” Rose slurs, and she collapses into the bar limply. “ _Shhit_. Did I fuck it up? You didn’ hear us. Oh no.”

“Rose. I forgot something in my room. Can you go get it for me?”

“Oh! Sure thing, hunny bunny. I’m always happy t’elp ya.” Rose gets up woozily and stumbles out of the room, not asking what Kanaya wants her to get.

_Yikes._

“I am sorry, Dave,” Kanaya says when Rose is out of earshot, and her voice is uncomfortably grave and full of pity. If Terezi is good at not making shit too serious with concerned looks and personal questions, Kanaya is the opposite of that. You’re pretty sure you remember her being way more chill than this. The stagnation must be getting to her, too. Regardless, you’re uncomfortable as fuck.

 “Uh. Anyways. Spades. Kanaya. Lay it on me. And it’s not about me, it’s-“ Kanaya gives you a look that’s so exhausted and thoroughly surfeited of bullshit that you just drop that line of nonsense right where you’d picked it up. “Okay, yeah, but can we not make it about me, for the love of whatever god you worship.”

“Sure. Do you want me to explain it from the start, or do you have any specific questions?”

“Just the basics,” you say, because you want this to be over yesterday. There’s a bit of sunk cost fallacy going on here because by god if you’ve gone through this much awful embarrassment you’re damn well going to get what you came here for.

She explains the basics. That when two trolls hate each other very much, and also want to diddle, they get into freaky hateful troll bone zone. There’s this weird element of finding each other really inspirational or something, and inspiring each other to do better by hitting all of each other’s weak spots. Which both parties know, because they’re super close and all up in each other’s shit.

By the time she finishes talking, you feel like you’re going to explode out of your skin. You know your shades are reflective and she can’t see your eyes, but you swear she can read you look a book and you need to get out get out get-

“Anything else I should know?” you force yourself to ask, because you’re not about to have a breakdown in front of a troll you’re going to have to see day in and day out and who might tell her rubberlips girlfriend all about how Dave freaked out the other day about blackrom. “I got something I might want to work out with the mayor.” It’s a lame joke and you can’t really bring yourself to deliver it well. Kanaya tries to smile along and you want to die. You’re really tempted to tell past Dave to just not have this conversation. But you know you shouldn’t. Shit’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Kanaya cuts to the chase and tells you that, hypothetically speaking, if a troll’s matespirit initiated a caliginous romance with another troll without informing their matespirit and discussing the terms and comfort level beforehand, such actions would be out of bounds of cultural expectations and something close to what she understands “human cheating” to be.

You gracefully thank her for her time and end the conversation quickly, like a gentleman, by which you stop time and flee the scene like a coward before you have a fucking meltdown in front of Rose’s girlfriend, who you’re going to have to face again and again for years on this tiny slice of claustrophobic hell you’re stuck on together.

It doesn’t hit you until you realize that you’re totally, definitely alone. Not until you check the corners and block off the door and make sure there’s not creepy vents that anyone could watch you through or use to sneak up on you. And then it hits you. Hah.

_What the fuck._

Why is she _choosing_ to do that? With him, sure, but with anyone?

What the fuck is wrong with trolls?

Why did they _choose_ this?

As far as you know, she’s the only one of the bunch of weird aliens in this session to actually take advantage of this fucking nightmare relationship. It _would_ be your luck, to get close to the one who was the most enthusiastic about the most fucked up thing she could possibly engage in.

_What the fuck?_

Why would anyone choose that?

You realize you’re muttering as you pace around the room. But it’s cool no one’s watching, no one’s there. You’re alone. It’s cool.

This whole situation makes you feel sick and really fucking uncomfortable. You can’t articulate why. Well. You won’t articulate why.

(because you didn’t have any choice with him)

(because you tried to get away and he kept you there)

(because the idea of choosing to engage in something that even approaches that makes you want to vomit)

Why is she cheating on you to do _that_? That one is easier to come to terms with. It still feels like a quick sock to the gut, but she isn’t really cheating, because she isn’t really yours, per say. You guys re friends and sometimes you mess around. You’re pretty sure you haven’t been doing the matespirits thing in full form, and as squicked as you are by the idea of her and Gamzee beating the shit out of each other for fun and profit, you’re also squicked by the idea of laying claim to her decisions. You just aren’t about that life.

She could have at least talked to you about it. Kind of a dick move. But whatever. You don’t care, really. (yes you do)

You want to just leave it at this. Like. You could just stop talking to her, because she seems to not want much to do with you anymore. But you know that’s probably just because she feels guilty, and that doesn’t make it cool, but after all this shit you feel like you owe it to her to at least try to talk about this.

-

The next time you see her, you cut off her weird excuses at the pass.

“Can we just talk about the Gamzee thing?” you say. It physically pains you to be this direct about it but you know if you don’t she’ll just be upset longer.

She freezes. “Dave, I. Um.” The silence is painful as she tries to come up with something to say, so you stop that from being a thing.

“It’s cool. Well, not totally. But what I guess I’m getting at is. What are you even getting out of that. Use easy words for my soft human mind, because I don't even kind of get it.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “Have you ever hated someone? Like, really hated them.”

You have. “Nope. And I fail to see where boners play a role.”

“You just hate them _so much_ that you. You just love to see them in pain. You love to hurt them. You want to fucking destroy them. You know? And they hate you too, and you just. Hurt each other. I need to hurt him. He deserves it."

You know what, actually, you can’t do this. Trolls are fucked up. You have a feeling that whatever Terezi is doing with Gamzee isn’t quite right or healthy even by troll standards, but you cannot summon the werewithal to want anything except to get the fuck out of this conversation and never engage with this shit again.

“I changed my mind, actually. You do you. OK? I’m not mad. But I can’t stick around with you if you’re gonna do that with him. Got it?”

You hope you’re making sense, because every nerve in your body is screaming irrationally that you’re in immediate danger, and that you’re filthy and bad and contaminated from touching this conversation. But you gotta stick it out for her, she deserves that much, after everything you’ve been through or whatever. You don’t articulate as much, but you guess maybe. You’re giving her a chance to choose you. You’re not articulating it because that would mean you were giving her an ultimatum and fuck that noise but. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t hoping she took the bait and told you she’d much rather keep hanging out with you than whatever the fuck she’s doing with him.

She nods.

“Sorry, Dave,” she says quietly.

And that’s that, you guess.

You abscond, and she stays.

-

That shitty saying comes to mind as you pace alone in your room, that you fall harder from a height. Dumb, inapplicable. You’re God Tier, you don’t fall at all. You float. You fly. You’re above this. You should be above this.

But you’re not, are you?

You're not, and you kind of wish you'd never started talking to her more in the first place. 

**Author's Note:**

> probably gonna write some unhealthy rosemary 'cause hooboy what a fun dynamic


End file.
